Alan Kay wrote:

> Most of these choices were for reasons of
> efficiency, but I think the later work of SELF and
> the MOP show that it is better to have a really
> clean general semantics with a fully objectified
> metamodel, and then use (automatic)
> compilation to get efficiency.

I'm new to Squeak, and I've been watching silently for
a while, but now I'm curious: is there any interest in
the Squeak community in taking Squeak in that sort of
direction?

I've been a Smalltalker for a few years now, and from
what I've seen of Squeak, I think I'm going to
absolutely love it. I've also been playing with Self a
bit, though, and I'm starting to be slightly
dissatisfied with the Smalltalk language. How suitable
is Squeak as a vehicle for language evolution? How
hard would it be to implement, say, Self-style objects
in Squeak and have them live alongside Smalltalk
objects and interact with them?

(I'll look through the Squeak VM code and maybe try it
myself soon enough; I'm just wondering what other
people in the Squeak community think of the idea.)

I'm not positive that it's a good idea. It's worth a
lot to have the entire system written in the same
language. But I also think it's worthwhile to
experiment with new language ideas, and I don't want
to be forced to recreate the Smalltalk library and a
whole GUI system and all that. So I was wondering
whether it'd be possible, and whether there's any
interest in the Squeak community in that sort of
thing.


Adam Spitz



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